


fission and fusion and covalent forces and the dances of uranium and lead

by mighty-worm (wyrm_n_sigun)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Chemistry, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Gen, Science, Sherlock is kind of unstable, look inside your heart; there's a radioactive element inside, the Periodic Table in Sherlock's bedroom is absolutely one of the best pieces of set design ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-15
Updated: 2012-06-15
Packaged: 2017-11-11 10:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyrm_n_sigun/pseuds/mighty-worm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He's looking at the Periodic Table. There is order in the universe, ultimately: there is always ordinary, and always extraordinary. There will always be low elements, boring ones, low atomic numbers and interest and high importance: for every Noble Gas, there's an ordinary metal. For every stable isotope, something will break. 92 is too high an atomic number to sustain.</p><p>Sherlock thinks of his failures, the things he's broken (his fingers once at fifteen years, a bully's nose at uni, hearts, his brain, himself), and wonders if he's going to break apart entirely."</p><p> </p><p>On Sherlock, and chemistry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fission and fusion and covalent forces and the dances of uranium and lead

Chemistry, Sherlock thinks, was his wetnurse.

Chemistry raised him, reared him, fed him: suckled him fat and silly upon the wonders of reactions, tiny ordered universes far too small for the eye and so unfathomably vast in magnitude of importance. Small certainties, the predictable liasions of electrons, their sameness necessary for the functioning of the universe ( _clockwork_ , he thinks) and yet unviewable with modern science. This is the farthest into physics he'll dare tread, but there's something lovely about trusting in the existence of tiny things, simply because the order of everything else proves what only the most oblique tests can hint at: the universe has clockwork, and it's ticking.

It's a bit like believing in a deity, he thinks, except it's everything, and that's a certainty. If it's a leap, then faith is measured in quanta of energy. 

Sherlock sits upon his bed and looks for the thousandth time at the Periodic Table on his bedroom wall and thinks, _Chemistry raised me._

He is what he is because of chemistry.

Of course, certainly, _everyone_ is -- that's the whole point. The electrons would have failed at their singular duty if things weren't exactly as they were because of their movements. But they are unsung, because they operate smoothly.

Sherlock is what he is, is Sherlock Holmes, because of chemistry. Because it took a hold of his mind -- _covalent bonds_ , he thinks, _are the strongest, but ionic forces do nicely_ \-- and laid an order and an unpredictability to creation, something to trust and something to suspect, to investigate. He can make a quantum leap (of faith) and burn photons and burn bright, and yet still mix chemicals that will set blood molecules spinning in suspension, where he can find them -- and prove them. No leaps.

He looks at the Periodic Table. It was one of the first things he memorised as a child, after having been forced to memorise and then promptly forgetting a number of speeches, works of literature, and songs that were apparently necessary for boys his age to remember. He didn't care for words: he liked electrons, with all their tiny, unfathomable intents. 

He's a genius, but he likes ordinary people, with all their petty, lurid secrets. 

It's true: he likes ordinary people. Few will believe it, but Sherlock doesn't actually enjoy the company of other geniuses, though it's stimulating: he hates the way the brilliant insist upon out-shining each other, butting heads like the positive ends of two molecules. It's stupid, it's no fun, it makes him nervous. He likes ordinary, when it's not annoying. Sometimes he wishes he were so.

He's looking at the Periodic Table. There is order in the universe, ultimately: there is always ordinary, and always extraordinary. There will always be low elements, boring ones, low atomic numbers and interest and high importance: for every Noble Gas, there's an ordinary metal. For every stable isotope, something will break. 92 is too high an atomic number to sustain.

Sherlock thinks of his failures, the things he's broken (his fingers once at fifteen years, a bully's nose at uni, hearts, his brain, himself), and wonders if he's going to break apart entirely.

To fly apart, take himself into pieces as he continues, accumulating, dying, only worsening his despair and building up to some gorgeous gory ending, all his neutrons flying about and taking away _everything_ ; it tastes like fate. He wonders if it's soon. He wants to smile: if he has a say, he'd like to go out in a cloud, glorious and _new_. He can take everything with him. 

But, no, wait -- there's an error in the sequence. What can he take with him? He's not got much: just some clutter, a lifetime of badly-restrained reactions, some control rods in need of replacing, and his friends. And he can't take his friends out in a mushroom cloud.

He's dangerous: he leaves _scars_ , he hurts and infects and claims. He needs to be shut away in sealed containers for a million years, so he doesn't explode on everybody, or worse, poison them. He's horrible, he knows, but he doesn't want to _hurt_. And sometimes he's afraid for the people who take care of him, and who do it so well.

John's resilient, though. He can take a lot, but the one thing he'll never take is bullshit. He doesn't control, he contains: but he won't, for an instant, let things get out of hand. Sherlock likes that. It's nice. It makes him feel less dangerous, like he can burst apart into neutrons and isotopes without worrying about breaking down everything else in the world, which so desperately needs to be safe and predictable for Sherlock to function at all in it. 

But John's not safe, either: he's dangerous, too, in a different way, and a bit broken, too. It's like he's collapsed into his elements, no -- _isotopes_ , already and has been left poisoned and heavy and sad but strong and steady, now, in a way he wasn't before. Neutrons and bullets flew.

Can Sherlock make himself into that, someone not ready to fly apart with a few nudges and a neutron loose? Does he even want to? Maybe, if things were different, he'd want to. Or, at least feel he had to, or had to try, so that he didn't break everyone else apart, too. 

But John can take almost anything, a barrier between him and the world, and everyone's safe if John stays put.

Sherlock frowns at the Periodic Table, and turns over into sleep again. 

In the end, where the universe spun apart on the rooftop, it was lose the rods and the shielding and everything, or lose the mess in the middle of it. It was an easy decision. They had to live. 

But uranium can wreak havoc if lead's not in the lining, and Europe quaked under Sherlock's step for three lonely years, where he walked, crazed, with his side empty and cold and wished for nothing more than to go back home.

And Sherlock had never wanted to, because he was nothing if not unstable, but he did end up decaying. It was a small price to pay for his sanity, and the chance to return home again, without exploding. 

And three years later, Sherlock Holmes was a wiser man, and his feet were heavy as lead when he came home.


End file.
